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> Run! Run like to he nearestt PC, withdrawour pokemon, and witcdraw your strongest pokemon! Or else you'll die!
> Well, you'll need a pokemon centre to withdraw pokemon from, so I suggest first reading the signpost, and then going towards the sea, and the other house. You probably can't swim, but there'll definitely be something interesting in the house. Also, what's with the partially-devoured corpse?

You really didn't need to be told to run.

You are limping away from that house as fast as you possibly can, leaving half a set of bloody footprints in the grass and wholly focused on getting the hell away from the monster in the house behind you. It is the single most terrifying thing you have ever seen in your entire life, and you were there when the red Gyarados went on the rampage at the Lake of Rage. That Thing is quite big, so it might take it a while to eat it, but taking risks with the Cyndaquil is the very last thing you want to do right now.

If the voices in your head had been paying more attention, they would have noticed that there is a connection to the Box network nearby – in Professor Elm's lab, no less. His work naturally demands that he be able to transfer Pokémon around the nation, since he is engaged in Vital Research (or was, before he and everyone else here disappeared).

As this fact comes back into your head, you pause and grin. Oh yes. Screw running. You can just waltz over to the PC, grab Chompy et al and come on back for some vengeance. It might be able to take down That Thing, but you'd love to see the Eldritch Cyndaquil take on six of Johto's finest at full strength.

You positively swagger back into Elm's lab, and stride down the aisle with an air of supreme confidence. This is only slightly dented by the visible blanching of your face as you pass the puddle of vomit, and you reach the PC with your features carefully rearranged into an expression of calm power. (You learned that one from Lance. Honestly. Give a man a handful of dragons and he thinks he's God's gift to the world.)

Dropping comfortably into Elm's seat, you thumb the power button and wait for the computer to boot up. It takes a moment, but soon enough—

Access to Laboratory Boxes restricted.
Username:
Password:

Aw, crap.

You stare at the screen, unable to quite believe the extent of the Narrator's malicious nature. Seriously? He put you through hell, he got your only Pokémon eaten alive, he let you come all this way with such high hopes, and now...?

You slump in the chair, head hung. No Pokémon. It looks like you're on your own.

Well, all right. You took out That Thing on your own, didn't you? And sure, he was weaker than the Cyndaquil, but still. You weren't even expecting any eldritch abominations when he turned up, and you managed.

You may well have a chance, if you play your cards right.

And so far, 'playing your cards right' has meant examining and looting absolutely everything, so doing that seems to be a pretty good idea.

You head back out of the lab and investigate that signpost. It reads, as it always has:

NEW BARK TOWN
PH'NGLUI MGLW'NAFH CTHULHU R'LYEH WGAH'NAGL FHTAGN

Wait, what?

You blink, and read it again.

NEW BARK TOWN
THE TOWN WHERE WINDS OF A NEW BEGINNING BLOW

Huh. You must have imagined it.

Next up, you investigate the corpse. It's just about as near to the Flaming Townhouse as you care to go, and it looks like it was mutated, burned and eaten, not necessarily in that order. It also looks like, underneath all that, it was once something more recognisable.

Looks like you found the Eldritch Chikorita. No prizes for guessing who got to it first.

The Cyndaquil must have killed it while you were in the house looting things. You wonder why you didn't hear it, and decide it must have been at the point that you were trying to tip over the refrigerator to see if there was anything behind it. There wasn't, but it did make a good noise.

Actually, now you think about it, that noise was probably what attracted the Cyndaquil's attention. You resolve to loot more stealthily from now on. No less enthusiastically – but definitely a bit more sensibly.

You creep quietly east to the bay, squeezing an uncomfortable amount of blood from your foot as you do so, and investigate to see if there's anything worth taking here. Everything looks pretty much as it normally does: cliffs, trees, sea. There's not much of interest here, but you do decide to pause and pull the shards of glass out of your foot and hands.

Othodox found some Glass Shards! Othodox put the Glass Shards in the Items Pocket.

Othodox is Slightly Wounded and Losing Blood!

Ouch. It feels better, but you aren't exactly in tip-top condition right now. You wish you'd thought to get your shoe back from That Thing before sending him to his death. Although how willing he would have been to relinquish it is a matter of some conjecture.

You consider swimming across the channel to Kanto, then dismiss the idea as stupid. You aren't a strong swimmer, and the waves here are powerful; you have no desire to be smashed into a cliff, knocked out and drowned. It sounds like a more comfortable death than being burned and eaten alive, as has befallen the Eldritch Cyndaquil's last two victims, but at least in New Bark you're only In Direst Peril, while in the sea you would probably be Facing Certain Death.

There remains only one place in town that you haven't checked yet: the house south of your own. Given what happened last time you entered a house, you're a little wary about going in, but you don't seem to have many other options, and leaving any location unlooted is unthinkable. You've never really done much looting before, beyond rummaging through people's trash (and let's face it, that's so much less glamorous that it doesn't even deserve to be called looting) and you're quite enjoying being able to walk into people's houses and steal everything that isn't nailed down.

You enter the house in a state of excited trepidation and take a swift, silent tour of its valuables.

Othodox found one Bulging Wallet! Othodox put the Bulging Wallet in the Financial Pocket.

Othodox found some Lava Cookies! Othodox put the Lava Cookies in the Medicine Pocket.

Othodox found one Rare Bone! Othodox put the Rare Bone in the Items Pocket.

Othodox found one Packet of Sticking Plasters! Othodox put the Packet of Sticking Plasters in the Medicine Pocket.

Where did all these extra pockets on your Bag come from, again? The damn thing looks like a bunch of balloons with all of them attached like that.

You should probably look at your still bleeding foot, try washing it out with some of the potion. Try ripping the Toy Giraffe apart so you can bandage your wound and then use the Graffer Tape to tape it to your foot. Hopefully that will act as a shoe replacement.

> Eat a lava cookie and use the plasters. You don't want to lose too much blood. Look in the wallet too. Money is good.
> You should probably look at your still bleeding foot, try washing it out with some of the potion. Try ripping the Toy Giraffe apart so you can bandage your wound and then use the Graffer Tape to tape it to your foot. Hopefully that will act as a shoe replacement.

So far this morning you have woken to an empty world, taken a footful of broken glass, and fought with unmentionable horrors – twice. It is most definitely time for breakfast.

You eat a Lava Cookie and ponder, in an absent sort of way, why That Thing threw up when he ate it. I mean, it's delicious. Presumably he can only digest meat. Or could only digest meat, since right now you're fairly sure he can no longer digest anything at all.

That done, you wash out your wounds with the Potion – which burns like tequila and seems to peel off three layers of dead skin, leaving your hands and foot cleaner than they have ever been in your life – and stick plasters haphazardly over your wounds until they're more or less covered.

Othodox is Slightly Wounded and Mostly Not Bleeding!

Man, you are such an excellent surgeon.

Next, you turn your attention to your lack of a right shoe. Time to put some of those items you looted to good use.

You wrap a short length of your Gaffer Tape around the larger end of a particularly dangerous-looking Glass Shard, then cut open the Toy Giraffe and insert your foot into it. You then tape it up again and stand up hesitantly.

Realize that the cyndaquil is now stronger because he beat both other Pokemon, realize that he is probably still hungry (and you are the only food), and finally feel guilty for making That Thing throw up his last meal, before becoming a meal.

> Realize that the cyndaquil is now stronger because he beat both other Pokemon, realize that he is probably still hungry (and you are the only food), and finally feel guilty for making That Thing throw up his last meal, before becoming a meal.

This had actually occurred to you before. The Cyndaquil is obviously smarter than the others, as evidenced by its ability to formulate complex plans and laugh evilly at the pain of its opponent, and it also seems to be a pit of ravening hunger, since it still had room for an eight-foot crocodile after eating most of a herbaceous dinosaur. In addition, the Chikorita must have given it enough experience to rise to Level 10, which means that That Thing will have given it even more experience, and it must now be close to (if not actually at) evolution point.

There is also nothing edible left in town except for you.

If you could feel more terrified, you would.

There's the guilt, too. You've never sent anything or anyone to their death before, and even though That Thing was an unmentionable horror from beyond the realms of normal reality, you do feel a little bad for turning him into psycho hedgehog food.

For about ten seconds, anyway. I mean, it was probably for the best. He was uncontrollable, bad-tempered and made no secret of his eventual plans to tear your face off and eat your innards. You honestly don't miss him a bit, except as a useful shield to place between yourself and oncoming monsters.

> Well, you've wasted enough time there already, so head to Cherrygrove City, but grab something to defend yourself...just in case.

You've spent several hours here and your life is rapidly going from bad to worse; there's a terrifying monster after you, everyone has disappeared, you have no Pokémon and your grip on reality seems to be loosening by the second.

It is most definitely time to leave town.

You creep cautiously past the Flaming Townhouse, and, feeling nervous, pull your Dangerous Makeshift Knife out of your Bag as you do so. You'll probably get killed before you manage to even scratch the Cyndaquil, but it makes you feel a little less defenceless.

You reach the path that leads out onto Route 29 and, with one last, lingering look at your hometown, leave.

After all, there isn't much time for sentimentality when home is full of monsters.

You stare at it for a while. If New Bark Town was so dangerous, and the tall grass is where monsters are meant to live... what the hell might be lurking in there?

For a moment, all you can do is think of hordes of Eldritch Rattatta swarming over your still-screaming body – and then you glance back, and see the green flames leap to the next house with a gleeful crackle. Whatever is in the grass, it can't possibly be as bad as what's back there, waiting in the burning shell of New Bark.

And anyway, soon it will finish eating That Thing, and search for more food.

Which means that it will be leaving town for Route 29.

You don't want to be here when that happens, so you steel yourself, grip your Dangerous Makeshift Knife so hard you almost cut yourself, and plough on through the tall grass.

Whether it's because you still smell of blood, petrol and burning plastic or simply because you're wielding a knife, nothing immediately attacks you, and as you head south down the winding trail that will eventually take you to Cherrygrove and the amenities of a Pokémon Centre it becomes apparent that there is very little life around. The birds are as silent here as they were in New Bark Town, and there's no rustling to indicate the passage of Sentret or fieldmice. Perhaps the weaker Pokémon and the animals have disappeared like all the humans apparently have – or perhaps they've fled, afraid of whatever horrendous evil has fallen over the region.

You're not actually sure which explanation is less terrifying, so you elect to ignore both and hope for the best.

> Look for berries on route 29

You know there's a Berry Tree near the Cherrygrove exit of the Route. Or is it an Apricorn Tree? You can never quite remember. Either way, it's lootable, so you make a mental note to stop by and pick some fruit when you pass by.

You reach the end of the first grassy patch and turn right; now you breathe easier, knowing that on this plain of short grass, you'll be able to see anything coming at you. Just ahead of you is where Tuscany used to stand, by that tree over there. She gave out Pink Bows, you remember, until they stopped making them and she resorted to TwistedSpoons instead. What did she do on the other days of the week, anyway? Perhaps she had a job.

You feel melancholy, and somewhat philosophical. There is so much about the people here that you did not know, and never will now.

North again, up the hill, and now there's a choice between more long grass and a skinny tree. Since core gameplay mechanics appear to have become somewhat skewed of late, you attempt to squeeze past the tree and are surprised at your success.

> East. Go east. Definitely east.
> There could be something to loot in the east, go east

It's been a while since you did anything suicidal, so you figure it's about time to go and investigate the terrifying sound coming from your right. You walk through a little field towards the edge of one of the tiny cliffs, look over the edge, and see—

—the Eldritch Cyndaquil standing between the trees that flank the path out of New Bark, head thrown back, the last of its howl dying on what pass for its lips.

You realise with a growing sense of your own stupidity that while the path back to New Bark Town is to your south, the cliffs to the east also lead back to it. Damn it, the Narrator was just abusing the text-based format to screw with your expectations again.

You no longer hold out any hope of looting anything to the east.

> Go loot the gate house before continuing on to Cherrygrove
> Head to cherrygrove as fast as your wounded leg can carry you.

Beating a hasty retreat, you duck briefly into the gatehouse but find very little other than the guard's spare hat.

> You seem down, definitely go roll in the flowers to boost your moral. Also you need to be limber just in case you get attacked, do some squats
> Take a little time to relax, go smell the flowers. Then go loot the Pokemon Center and see if you can access Bill's PC

FLOWERS OHMAHGERD FLOWERZ

The sight of so much beauty after the horror of New Bark drives you mildly insane for a few minutes. When you come to your senses, you are lying (minus most of your clothing) in one of the Cherrygrove flowerbeds, flowers woven into your hair and a deeply contented smile on your face.

Much refreshed and slightly embarrassed, you put your clothes back on and get up. You leave the flowers on your head, though. The bright colours and the soft scents it emanates are a decent morale-booster.

Othodox found one Flowery Wreath! Othodox put the Flowery Wreath on his head.

So energetic do you now feel that you engage in a few squats, which a stabbing pain in your foot swiftly informs you is a bad idea. This reminder of the holes in your foot is somewhat disheartening, but a quick sniff of the fragrant perfumes of the Flowery Wreath soon puts paid to that.

Feeling happy once more, you wander into the Pokémon Centre – which is, unsurprisingly, deserted – and sit down before the PC. You boot it up, access Bill's PC and wait for the Boxes to load.

At last, you think. At last, I've got a break.

Then the Boxes load, and you stare in horror.

Your team is gone.

In fact, most of the Pokémon you've collected are gone. In their place are strange, blocky lumps of data that don't make any sense – their names random collocations of letters and numbers, their movesets picked according to no logic you've ever heard of. Grey squares criss-crossed with blue and pink lines, orbs of static with peculiar red faces – it all seems to be gone.

The unthinkable must have happened.

The Box Network, the most heavily-protected computer system in the entire world, has crashed.

There are entire islands dedicated to making this thing run, you know. There are people the world over – Kanto, Johto, Hoenn, Sinnoh, Unova, even the freaking Sevii Islands – working eighteen hours a day to keep the system running and free from corruption and hackers.

Then it hits you: they've all disappeared. It stands to reason; everyone else has. Everyone who was keeping the Box Network running has disappeared, and without them...

The whole damn thing has crashed.

You stare at the screen for a while. Gone. They're gone. Nearly seventy levels, eight Gym Leaders, four Elites and half the Championship battle together, and now...

Gone. All of them.

Maybe forever.

Chompy. Teddy. Morbo. Bertram. Voltz. Bugsy.

Gone.

It's some time before you're able to carry on; you're not sure how long, exactly, but the digital clock on the PC screen tells you it's now 2.43. You wipe away the tears, offer a brief and clumsy prayer to the Players, those strange and capricious gods, to ask that your friends go on to a better place, and take another look at the PC screen.

The blocks of bad data don't seem to be interactable – you can't even click on them; the cursor just judders and slows whenever it goes near them. You leave them alone and keep scrolling.

It looks like an Egg, but not like any you've seen before. The surface is a dark, smoky grey, shot through with ash-coloured swirls that crawl across its surface like sluggish clouds. You squint, and can just about make out the faint shaking that shows it's viable.

You try to click on it, and to your surprise you can.

Its name is 'Bad Egg'.

A slow smile of incredulity creeps across your face.

You've heard of these. When the Players meddle in the affairs of mortals, they often create these: eggs belonging to no known species, which are capable of hatching into any known species of Pokémon – and occasionally other things, rumoured creatures that stalk the cracks in reality. Did the Players hear your prayer and take pity on you? Or did the scrambling of the Box Network somehow generate one at random?

You aren't certain, but you are certain you're taking that Egg before the broken Box destroys it.

Othodox received one B4d 3gg!

Holding the Bad Egg up to the light, you see that it warps reality around it; it reaches deep into the underlying code of the universe and twists it, twisting the fabric of space and time with every pulse of its unseen occupant's heart. With this thing in your hands, you feel 133t.

You frown. Maybe you shouldn't be waving it around too much. You don't want your h4nd5 w4Rp1ng.

The baD eG9 was sent to a Poké Ball.

A search through the rest of the Boxes turns up precisely nothing, but you don't mind so much now. You own a freaking Bad Egg. That's more luck than you've ever seen in one go in your entire life.

Othodox will periodically check the status of the b4D EgG without being asked.

> YOu know who we hven't visited in a while? Mr. Pokemon. So, after withdrawing your pokemon, head to go see him.

You don't feel comfortable leaving Cherrygrove unlooted, but you resolve to go investigate his house when you next pass by. Elm always said he used to collect weird stuff. Maybe some of it will be useful now.

> Check the Pokemon Center to see if you can access your Pokemon, then loot the houses. Maybe you can find a new pair of Running Shoes...?

Feeling jauntier, you take a deep sniff of your Flowery Wreath and head out into town. First up is the Guide Gent's house, since he usually has a stockpile of items to hand out to new Trainers; inside, you find a cupboard filled with hundreds and hundreds of shoeboxes, each of which contains a brand-new pair of Running Shoes.

You consider taking some, but it's not like you can't run without them, and you're really beginning to enjoy the feeling of cotton fluff beneath your feet. In fact, if you can find another stuffed animal, you'd seriously consider replacing your other shoe.

The voices in your head may be starting to get to you.

The next house, a carbon-copy of the Guide Gent's and every other house in Johto, contains nothing living, but you obtain a sizeable haul of random crap. Huzzah!

Othodox found some Lithium Batteries! Othodox put the Lithium Batteries in the Electrical Goods Pocket.

Othodox found one Stylish Dress! Othodox put the Stylish Dress in the Eveningwear Pocket.

Othodox found one Stale Baguette! Othodox put the Stale Baguette in the Baked Comestibles Pocket.

Othodox found one Boxed Wine! Othodox put the Boxed Wine in the Booze Pocket.

Othodox found some Machine Pistol Magazines! Othodox put the Machine Pistol Magazines in the Ammo Pocket.

Othodox found one Beauteous Ring! Othodox put the Beauteous Ring in the Jewellery Pocket.

Try as you might (and try you do; it would be very, very useful), you can't find the gun that goes with those bullets. Perhaps it's somewhere else.

As you step out onto the streets of Cherrygrove, you hear something scream on Route 29. It's not human, thankfully; you'd hazard a guess at a Sentret or Furret, although it sounds far too loud to come from such a small animal. You shiver and move on, heading for the westernmost house, the one on the beach.

A plume of sickly smoke is rising from Route 29.

It looks like someone's already been through here: the table and chairs are smashed and piled up against the windows, and the stuffing has been torn out of the sofas and strewn across the floor. The paintings lie scattered and torn on the ripped-up carpet, and a puddle of water is growing around the broken sink.

Perhaps you could find something if you searched through the junk, but you're a little alarmed at the savage nature of the redecoration here. It looks like the work of some kind of animal – and every animal you've met today has been huge, mutant and intent on murdering you.

After walking in circles, put on the dress and drink all the boxed wine. If anyone is alive and looking for survivors, they are more likely to trust a drunk guy in a dress! (The narrator had to mention the dress for a reason, maybe it is magic as well?)

> Cleaning the place up a bit would be nice. Someone has put a lot of effort into making that house a home and they'd be pretty mad to return to it in this state. That's if they're not poke-food.

This is possibly the kindest voice in your head you've heard today. The others have suggested acts of looting, violence and general postapocalyptic mayhem; this one, however, strikes you as more of a conscience than a malign symptom of schizophrenia.

You make an attempt to tidy up the place, sweeping the stuffing fragments into one pile and the fragments of wood and steel into another. The paintings you tape together with some more of your Gaffer Tape, and stick back onto the walls. There isn't much you can do about the puddle by the sink, but you cut up the Squat Green Hat, squish it into a plug and stuff it into the pipe to stop the flow.

You take a few steps back and survey your handiwork. It's not quite home, but it's definitely not a wrecked hovel any more, either. It's then that you notice the little piece of black plastic protruding from under one of the sofas.

It looks like it needs charging up, but you can't find a charger anywhere.

>Run around in a circle until the egg hatches.Don't want to be unprotected in the wilderness
> How about we walk,don't want to lose anymore precious blood or stamina, around in a circle until either the egg hatches or you hear signs of an unhappy animal.

You go outside and run around for a while, but it doesn't appear to have much effect on the Bad Egg. Given how prevalent scripted events seem to be nowadays, you suspect it's probably going to hatch fortuitously at some critical point in the future, and that nothing you do is going to change that.

>After walking in circles, put on the dress and drink all the boxed wine. If anyone is alive and looking for survivors, they are more likely to trust a drunk guy in a dress! (The narrator had to mention the dress for a reason, maybe it is magic as well?)

This is the single best idea you have had all day.

You take off your clothes, stuff them into your Bag and slide into the Stylish Dress instead. As you suspected, it's a perfect fit.

You feel extremely pretty, and after the whole three-litre box of wine, you feel even prettier. You are also having some difficulty standing, and in fact doing anything other than vomiting copiously into the surf.

Not onto your dress, though. That's far too nice to spoil.

As you straighten up, wiping your mouth on the remnants of the Squat Green Hat, you notice that the smoke over Route 29 is much, much closer.

It looks like Cyndaquil's hunger is driving it closer still.

You are feeling unpleasantly sober again.

> You should probably go down route 30 so you can loot Mr Pokemon's house and that berry guy's house. Look for berries along the way. Maybe you can climb over the ledges to avoid the grass.

You decide wisely that now is the time to leave town, and, Dangerous Makeshift Knife in hand, you walk out to the north, heading onto Route 30. There is a ledge in front of you, and the slope that circumvents it is covered in tall grass. For a moment, you contemplate climbing the ledge to avoid the grass, but realise that there are two problems with this. One, it's slightly too high and there are no handholds; two, any climbing will assuredly ruin your Stylish Dress, and that cannot be allowed.

You're becoming more and more comfortable in this thing, actually. Why on earth haven't you tried this before? You've been missing out for years.

As on Route 29, nothing comes for you in the long grass, and you wonder if anything's even left. Have the Pokémon all vanished? You suppose you could check with the Pokédex's Radar Mode, but you're hesitant about using that without the approval of the voices in your head.

Once you reach the top of the grass, the path forks around a lone house. There was a ledge on the left, you remember, but it looks like there was some kind of massive fight at the top, and a tree has fallen from above to provide a way up.

To the left is a fallen tree leading to the continued path.

To the right is a patch of long grass leading north between trees and a pond.

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